--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "richardwillytexwilliams" <willytex@...> wrote: > > turquoiseb: > > 13 pithy comments from an author on the ramifications > > of the OWS protestors storming the ramparts. > > > 5 reasons why income inequality is a myth:
Reprising my post from last Tuesday, which Willytex apparently didn't see... Thoroughly refuted here, with links: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/10/yes-indeed-income-inequality-really-growing Money quote from Matt O'Brien after talking to the economist whose paper was (mis)used at Willytex's link to attempt to discredit income equality: "Consider the research and writing of Robert Gordon, a professor of social sciences at Northwestern University. He has done pioneering work questioning the extent of the aforementioned gap between productivity and median wageswork that Pethokoukis misappropriates to claim that income gains have been shared 'fairly equally.' Gordon found that the productivity gap may be about a tenth the size as what is commonly thought, but, as he told me, that doesn't negate the story about runaway wealth at the top of the income distribution. "The evidence on the long-term increase of inequality within the bottom 99 percent is ambiguous and complex, but what stands out like a searchlight is the unprecedented and increasing inequality between the bottom 99 percent and the top 1 percent," Gordon told me. > "If inequality had really exploded during the past 30 > to 40 years, why did American politics simultaneously > move rightward toward a greater embrace of free-market > capitalism? > > Shouldn't just the opposite have happened as beleaguered > workers united and demanded a vastly expanded social > safety net and sharply higher taxes on the rich? What > happened to presidents Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry? > > Even Barack Obama ran for president as a market friendly, > third-way technocrat. > > Nope, the story doesn't hold together because the > financial facts don't support it..." > > '5 reasons why income inequality is a myth and Occupy > Wall Street is wrong' > http://tinyurl.com/63f6ukv >
